The Anonymous Caller

Recognizing It's a Fraud and Evaluating What to Do1

Learning Objectives

After completing and discussing this case you should be able to

Appreciate real-world pressures for meeting financial expectations

Distinguish financial statement fraud from aggressive accounting

Identify alternative actions when confronted with suspected financial statement

fraud

Develop arguments to resist or prevent inappropriate accounting techniques

It was 9:30 A.M. on a Monday morning, one like a thousand others in the Naked City. I
was sipping my cup of coffee, pondering Jake van der Kamps rant in the South China
Morning Post when the call came through.
"Hi Dr. Westland, do you have a minute?"
"Sure," the professor replied.
"I am one of your former students, but if you don't mind, I would prefer to remain
anonymous. I think it is best for both of us if I not reveal my name or company to you. I am
concerned that the senior executives of the company where I serve as controller just
provided our local bank fraudulently misstated financial statements. I need some fast
advice about what to do. Currently, I am on my car phone and need help evaluating my
next step before I head to my office this morning. May I briefly describe what's going on
and get some input from you?" she asked.
"Go ahead, let me see if there is some way I can help," responded Dr. Westland.
"I am the controller of a small start-up company that I joined three and one-half months
ago. On Friday of last week, the company's chief executive officer (CEO), the vice
president of operations, and the chief financial officer (CFO) met with representatives of
the bank that funds the company's line of credit. One of the purposes of the meeting was
to provide our most recent quarterly financial statements. The company is experiencing a
severe cash shortage, and the bank recently halted funding the line of credit until we
could present our most recent operating results. It was at that meeting, just three days
ago, that our senior executive team knowingly submitted financial statements to the bank
that overstated sales and receivables accounts."

This case was prepared by Frank A. Buckless, Ph.D. and Mark S. Beasley, Ph.D. of North Carolina State University and Steven M.
Glover, Ph.D. and Douglas F. Prawitt, Ph.D. of Brigham Young University, and significantly edited by J. Christopher Westland PhD CPA.
The names presented in this case study are fictitious, and any relation to persons living or dead is purely coincidental. This case study is
intended as a basis for class discussion, and is not intended to illustrate either effective or ineffective handling of an administrative
situation. If you are actually reading this disclaimer, please raise your hand.

"Earlier on Friday, prior to the bank meeting, I vehemently refused to sign the commitment letter required by the bank because of my concerns about the inclusion of sales
transactions to customers on account that I knew did not meet revenue recognition criteria
specified by GAAP. I explained to the CEO and CFO that I believed including those
transactions in the quarterly results would constitute fraud. They continued to insist that the
financial statements needed to reflect the transactions, because without them, the bank
would not continue funding the line of credit. They accused me of living in an "ivory
tower" and emphasized that companies booked these kinds of transactions all the time.
Although they acted like they appreciated my desires for perfection and exactness, they
made me feel like it was my lack of experience in the real world that kept me from having
a more practical perspective to a common business practice. Unfortunately, none of the
senior executives have accounting-related backgrounds. I am the top-level accounting
person at the company."
"Over the weekend I had time to think about the situation, and now I am even more
convinced that this is clearly fraud. My CEO and CFO have been arm-twisting the
accounting staff to book sales transactions before sales occur. As a matter of fact, the customers haven't placed any kind of orders with our company and no goods have been
shipped to them. The CEO and CFO noted that booking these kinds of credit sales
transactions is a common business practice, even if it isn't technically compliant with
GAAP, given that the transactions represent sales expected in the very near future, perhaps
even next week."
"As it turns out, the CEO even instructed the accounts payable clerk, while I was out of
the office for a couple of days, to record entries the CEO had handwritten on a piece of
paper. The accounts payable clerk has never worked with sales and receivables. The CEO
told the clerk, who works part-time while finishing his accounting degree at your
university, to not mention the entries to me unless I specifically asked. In that event, the
clerk was supposed to tell me that the entries related to new sales generated by the CEO
and that all was under control. Fortunately, the student clerk is currently taking your
auditing course, where financial statement fraud is a topic, and he was uncomfortable
with what had transpired. He immediately updated me on the day I returned about what
had happened. These bizarre entries make up almost half of our first quarter's sales. Of
course, given that these are quarterly financial statements, they are unaudited. Our external
auditor has not performed any kind of interim review of them."
"Do you think this is limited to just one quarter?" Dr. Westland asked."
"I think so," the caller replied. "As I mentioned, I joined the company three and a half
months ago. One of my first tasks involved closing out the prior fiscal year and assisting
the external auditors with the year-end audit. As best I can tell, these unusual activities
began just recently given our poor results in the first quarter of this year. Our company is
a start-up enterprise that has been operating at a net loss for a while. Just last week, the
bank stopped clearing checks drawn off the company account. They weren't necessarily
bouncing them, but they were not funding the line of credit until the first quarter results
were presented on Friday. Interestingly, the bank immediately started funding the line late
Friday and, I understand based on phone calls with my staff this morning, the bank is
continuing to fund the line this morning. I really think the earnings misstatements first occurred this
quarter and that the prior year audited financial statements are not misstated. Unfortunately, I had to

sign a bank commitment letter only two weeks after joining the company. That commitment letter
related to funding the loan right at the close of the last fiscal year. So, my signature is on file at the
bank related to prior-year financial results. But, given the current events, I refused to sign the
documents delivered to the bank on Friday. One of my accounting clerks resigned last week due to
similar concerns. Our vice president of human resources (HR) discussed the resignation with me
after learning about the clerk's concern during a final exit interview. I might add, however, that the
HR vice president is the wife of the CEO."
"Anyway, I'm just not sure what responsibilities I have to disclose the earnings misstatements to
outside parties. I am considering all sorts of options and thought I would see what advice you could
offer. What do you think I should do, Dr. Westland?"
Questions for Discussion
1. What would you recommend to the caller if you were Dr. Westland? What are the risks of
continuing to work with the company? What are the risks of resigning immediately? Could
the state board of accountancy be a source of advice?
2. What responsibility, if any, does the caller have to report this situation directly to the bank
involved? Before you respond, think about the risks present if the caller does inform the
bank and it later turns out that the caller's assessment of the situation was inaccurate and, in
fact, there was no fraud.
3. What other parties should be notified in addition to the bank? What concerns do you have
about notifying the external auditors?
4. Do you think situations like this (i.e., aggressive accounting or even financial statement
fraud) are common practice? What pressures or factors will executives use to encourage
accounting managers and staff to go along? What arguments can you use to resist those
pressures? How does one determine whether a company is aggressively reporting, but still
in the guidelines of GAAP, versus fraudulently reporting financial information?